At six years old, I answered my father's dismissive question — "Who do you think you are?" — with complete certainty: I was the Queen of the Universe. I believed it with every cell. I knew my value wasn't up for debate. I knew I was worthy of taking up space, of being loud, of being me.
And then the world got to work.
Ballet teachers who demanded I mold my body into shapes it wasn't designed for. A cultural context that rewarded compliance and punished authenticity. Relationships where love was conditional on performance. Workplaces that extracted my best and called it "contribution."
By the time I reached my thirties, I had become expert at wearing masks. I was high-functioning, impressive to look at from the outside, and quietly disappearing on the inside. I had built what I call the Tower of Strength — a fortress constructed from years of trading sovereignty for validation.
The Conditioning of Love
Early on, my grandmother showed me what unconditional love felt like — acceptance without performance, warmth without conditions. It was the clearest picture I ever had of what love could be. But the world's other messages were louder and more constant: that love had to be earned, that I had to be less to be accepted, that my bigness was a problem to be managed rather than a gift to be expressed.
So I learned. I learned to be small. I learned to smile when I wanted to scream. I learned to make myself easier to be around. And every time I did it, I moved a little further from the six-year-old who knew exactly who she was.
The Inner Hearth
The path back is not dramatic. It doesn't require a crisis or a complete dismantling of your life (though sometimes those happen). It begins with something much quieter: reconnecting with what I call the Inner Hearth — that internal sanctuary untouched by external judgment.
The Inner Hearth is the part of you that was always there before the conditioning began. It's the six-year-old who knew her worth. It's the impulse that's been waiting underneath every performance for you to stop performing and simply be.
Getting there requires noticing. Noticing when you're performing versus being. Noticing which beliefs about your worthiness you inherited versus which ones are actually true. Noticing the moments when you shrink — and choosing, deliberately, to take up a little more space instead.
No One Is Coming
No external savior is coming. No perfect partner who will finally see you fully. No authority figure who will grant you permission to be yourself. No moment of readiness that will make it feel safe to want what you actually want.
And this is not bad news — this is the most liberating news you will ever receive. Because if no one is coming to save you, it means you have complete power to save yourself. It means you are the source of the unconditional love your grandmother modeled. It means you can become your own witness, your own nurturer, your own permission-granter.
The Queen of the Universe is still in there. She never left. She has just been waiting — patiently, faithfully — for you to remember who you are and give her the crown back.